Shipyards are the worst places in the world; I challenge you to find a professional sailor that doesn't loathe yard time. Sailors like their ships floating and intact, where everything is where it is supposed to be and everything works how it did yesterday. Look what happened to USS MIAMI: no, not the pyromaniac that torched it, but instead the ship's firefighting systems being OOC, allowing time for the blaze to consume all of the forward compartment.

Shipyards f*ck everything up on the way to fixing things, and I hate 'em.

factoryconnection:Shipyards are the worst places in the world; I challenge you to find a professional sailor that doesn't loathe yard time. Sailors like their ships floating and intact, where everything is where it is supposed to be and everything works how it did yesterday. Look what happened to USS MIAMI: no, not the pyromaniac that torched it, but instead the ship's firefighting systems being OOC, allowing time for the blaze to consume all of the forward compartment.

Shipyards f*ck everything up on the way to fixing things, and I hate 'em.

I've been told that personnel make up the bulk of the firefighting system on submarines.

I spoke to some of the USN sailors who tried to train the Turks how to fight and maintain the three Frigates we gave them after the Saratoga Turkey Shoot. Most of the Turkish sailors never bothered paying any attention to things like preventive maintenance or damage control. Only one of the ex-USN ships made it to Marmaris under its own power. One of them suffered a main-space fire crossing the Atlantic and ended up being scrapped. The second ship broke down near Gibraltar and had to be towed across the Med. The only ship to make it needed several months of overhaul to be seaworthy- none of the regular maintenance (lube oil in the pumps, for example) had been done, and most of the equipment was about to seize up or had already done so. On top of that, the Turks had apparently been using the engine room bilges as a convenient urinal, so the whole ship stank.

I think highly of Turks in general, but the conscripts who make up their Navy appear to be the rejects from all the other services. The US Navy spends most of its time maintaining the equipment and training for battle-damage. Almost every other country seems to believe that preventive maintenance and damage control are just some weird American fetish- the Brits being prominent exceptions.

The charlie-foxtrot in TFA is right in line with my experience with the Turkish Navy. Turks tend to substitute raw courage and willpower for good sense in military settings.

puckrock2000:I'm not saying the Swedish Navy is incompetent, but they built the world's largest warship and it sank immediately after it was launched, and wasn't raised until 300 years later.

That was more of a shipbuilding problem than a shiphandling problem. The Vasa was built top-heavy and didn't have enough ballast. At that time ship building was an imprecise science. They did things by trial and error and tradition. It would figure that the largest vessel made at that time would have incorrect proportions. No one had made one that big before.

factoryconnection:Shipyards are the worst places in the world; I challenge you to find a professional sailor that doesn't loathe yard time. Sailors like their ships floating and intact, where everything is where it is supposed to be and everything works how it did yesterday. Look what happened to USS MIAMI: no, not the pyromaniac that torched it, but instead the ship's firefighting systems being OOC, allowing time for the blaze to consume all of the forward compartment.

Shipyards f*ck everything up on the way to fixing things, and I hate 'em.

Normandie

had one of the most advanced fire suppression systems afloat, which was inoperable when we tried to turn her into a troop ship in New York Harbor.

I remember well the morning when the mist lifted to show a U.S. Navy Missile ship firmly rammed onto the islet in the middle of the approach to Helsinki's harbour. So far as I can recall, it wasn't being driven by any Turks.

It kinda took the shine off the flagwaving visit of a state of the art symbol of power. Mind you, it was around that time, and not so far away that the Soviet Navy stuffed a Whisky Class sub onto the rocks off Karlskroa in Sweden.

Name_Omitted:factoryconnection: Shipyards are the worst places in the world; I challenge you to find a professional sailor that doesn't loathe yard time. Sailors like their ships floating and intact, where everything is where it is supposed to be and everything works how it did yesterday. Look what happened to USS MIAMI: no, not the pyromaniac that torched it, but instead the ship's firefighting systems being OOC, allowing time for the blaze to consume all of the forward compartment.

Shipyards f*ck everything up on the way to fixing things, and I hate 'em.

Normandiehad one of the most advanced fire suppression systems afloat, which was inoperable when we tried to turn her into a troop ship in New York Harbor.

[upload.wikimedia.org image 594x344]

Oh, it was operable all right. Her chief shipwright was even on the dock, begging to be let aboard so he could turn it on. FDNY refused because they knew best and just kept pumping on water from their fireboats. Your picture is the end result of that total ignorance of Stability and the Free Surface Effect.

I spent time at Incirlik AB Turkey in the early 90's. A small grass fire no larger than a small house developed (I don't remember how). When the Turkish fire department on the base arrived they began spraying water from a small booster line at the fire. Three trucks and about one hour later the fire was out mainly because it ran out of fuel. It was like watching the Keystone cops.

Oh, it was operable all right. Her chief shipwright was even on the dock, begging to be let aboard so he could turn it on.

Seriously? Seems like one of the first things you'd want to automate if you were designing a ship.

The ship was designed around 1931 and built in 1934. Having a centralized fire suppression system at all was extremely modern. And even then, the only problem with it was that it required someone knowledgeable in its operation to turn it on. At sea with a trained French crew? Not much of an issue. At the dock in New York undergoing yard work using American workers completely untrained regarding the ship? Then it became an issue.

Oh, it was operable all right. Her chief shipwright was even on the dock, begging to be let aboard so he could turn it on.

Seriously? Seems like one of the first things you'd want to automate if you were designing a ship.

The ship was designed around 1931 and built in 1934. Having a centralized fire suppression system at all was extremely modern. And even then, the only problem with it was that it required someone knowledgeable in its operation to turn it on. At sea with a trained French crew? Not much of an issue. At the dock in New York undergoing yard work using American workers completely untrained regarding the ship? Then it became an issue.

The same shipwright also wanted to open the waterproof doors in her hull so she would fill evenly and settle the 6 feet to the bottom. At that point, the NYFD could have emptied the Delaware River into her and she could have been saved. Churchill once said the two Queens shortened the war by two years. Imagine if the Allies had had a third liner.

I do stand corrected, the fire supression system was not inoperable, but also not in operation during the remodel, nor was there a single agency (Navy, Coast Guard, NYFD) in charge of dealing with her should a disaster occur.